Containers for use in the serving of "fast food", to be practical, should ideally meet several basic goals. The container should be inexpensive, as the container is normally a single use, throw-away item. This usually suggests the use of folded paperboard cartons. Such paperboard cartons, either fully or partially assembled, have also been found to be particularly adapted for compact nesting and storage, a significant factor in reducing shipping and storage costs.
It is also important that the container have insulative qualities particularly where heated foodstuffs are to be maintained warm and/or foodstuffs of different temperatures are to be separately maintained, at the appropriate temperatures, in a single carton. Such features normally suggest the use of a more expensive foamed polystyrene container along with its attendant problems of disposal in an environmentally correct manner.
While savings are effected in the use of compartmented cartons for two separate foods, as compared to separate cartons for each food, such compartmented cartons, whether of foamed polystyrene or paperboard, require a rather elaborately constructed partition wall between the compartments to clearly segregate the foods against co-mingling and in a manner as to prevent heat transfer. Such partitions in paperboard cartons also frequently involve rather elaborate folding procedures and frequently give rise to the possibility of leakage between the compartments.